


Splinter

by KathSilver, Tattered_Dreams



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Frypan is the best wingman, M/M, Newt Lives, Safe Haven, Smut, Too much sand, almond oil, for the splinters that never got to touch dat ass, hints of Gally/Brenda, post tdc, someone get these boys a bed, top!newt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 16:12:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13907643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KathSilver/pseuds/KathSilver, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tattered_Dreams/pseuds/Tattered_Dreams
Summary: In the aftermath of a burning city, survivors are starting to rebuild, to learn to live in Safe Haven. For Thomas and Newt...the only way they're looking to live is together, and all it takes is one moment to start the lives they never thought they'd get.or in other words: Newt can't handle watching Thomas just...swallowing. And when he snaps, their lives fall into place and they fall into each other right after.





	Splinter

**Author's Note:**

> Rachel and I started this with the intent of us both writing for Newt, but it became me writing Newt and her giving voice to Thomas. This idea is entirely because of the TMR Discord and we owe them everything. Be warned for the smut!

It was driving him insane. The slow, preoccupied way Thomas was sitting, entranced by the licking tongues of flame in the firepit, his jaw shifting, tongue rolling between his teeth. Even then - the night sky a blanket of stars above and the spread of the beach serene and empty - he was still caught up, still thinking of far too much at once.

He had the weight of a fallen world on his shoulders.

But Newt didn’t much care right then. It had been a long day and if Thomas swallowed one more shucking time - Firelight dancing across the hollow of his throat, the Adam’s apple sliding beneath warm skin - Newt was going to do something. He told himself he had self restraint, that they hadn’t talked about this; that it was probably too much, too soon...but it was no use, really.

Every few moments or so Thomas reached out and placed his long, slender fingers around the neck of his water bottle, dragging it up to his perfect, pink lips and taking a swig. He seemed completely oblivious to the fact that from the moment he grasped the bottle and until he put it down again Newt was strung tighter than a bowstring. Newt felt his mouth hang open a bit as he watched, entranced by the way a single droplet of water escaped from the corner of Thomas's mouth and then slowly, oh so slowly, cascaded down his chin and trickled down his throat. 

The droplet caught the firelight and glistened in a mesmerizing dance. Newt ached to taste that drop of water more than he’d ever longed for anything else in his life.

\--

Thomas has been sitting there the entire time, lost in thought; too much to do, too much to worry about and he just doesn't know how they'll do it all. They're at the end of the world. There isn't much of one left at all. And all they have are traumatized teens, a few token adults and a boat that brought them here. It’s...a lot. There isn't time to rest, to relax.

But then...he notices the way Newt's eyes jump to him.

It’s a small thing, slight, but he notices.

At first Thomas can't work it out - he hasn't done anything - but the careful, blazing look makes his blood pulse. He swallows back on the feeling and that's when he realizes. Newt's eyes dart to the motion in his throat, firelight reflected there. Thomas stills carefully, heart hammering beneath his ribs, electric shocks sparking under his skin and the cold of the night outside the ring of logs seems so very far away; distant, transient. Only this exists. This is...interesting. Not unwanted.

Where is everyone else, anyway? Thomas isn't too certain he cares. He can feel Newt's eyes on him, feel them like a warm, wanting entity.

He swallows again. Newt goes very still beside him, and Thomas's heart jack-knifes in his chest. Yearning courses through his bloodstream. All he has to do now is find what will make him snap.

Holding his breath, lungs full of wood smoke and sea salt, Thomas lifts the bottle between his fingers to his lips, feels water escape the seal of his mouth and slide back under his jaw. He doesn’t make a move to catch it.

He's going to find it, that razor edge of restraint, and he's going to break it, and he wonders if Newt knows they're playing a game.

\--

If Newt was asked about this later, he could pinpoint the moment he snapped. 

One moment he was wetting his lips in fevered anticipation and the next his pale fingertips were lightly pressed against heated skin, his index finger lazily swiping at the drop of water as if it had  _ any _ right to be there at all. Newt stopped breathing but Thomas's pulse skyrocketed, beating against Newt’s fingertips like a drum. Newt risked a glance up and found gleaming amber eyes boring into his, darkened by some emotion Newt wasn’t confident enough to name. Newt opened his mouth further, as if to explain, but then he felt the throat under his hand move ever so slightly and with their eyes meeting- Thomas swallowed again.

Newt moved slowly now, taking the challenge Thomas had thrown down with that look in his eyes and that final swallow, and meeting it. Newt knew that if he moved too quickly, gave too much away, it would be over. His self-control was gone, already hanging in tatters and drifting in the wind- only the desperate need to not screw this up held him in check.

Newt’s focus travelled down as he moved forward, his eyes tracing the curve of Thomas's face, admiring the muscle in his jaw that stood taught with Thomas's teeth clenched tight. Tracing down, down across the glorious bands of skin and sinew that had so entranced him in the first place until he locked his eyes on his target. Thomas didn’t move, didn’t speak to stop him even though Newt’s whole body had leaned forward, turning into the other man’s heat - lighting a fire all along where they were joined to match the one in the pit before them.

Like a lure that droplet of water drew him in, he could feel it partially on his finger as well but the part that sang to him like a siren's song was just there - to the left of the Adam’s apple, a tease in the starlight. 

When Newt was finally in position, oh how agonizingly slow it was that he moved, he bowed his head forward, breathed out the breath he was holding and so enjoyed the way Thomas's skin rose in pebbles to meet it, and  _ licked _ . 

He was right, it tasted of the sweetest honey, of warm summer days spent lounging and long winter nights of laughter. The salt stung his tongue and roughened his voice, although it came out as no more than a restrained whisper because Newt backed up just enough so he was still positioned underneath Thomas's ear and spoke, 

“You missed a drop, Tommy.”

\--

There's a fire under his skin. A forest fire; the kind that burns and burns and wipes out the world as it goes.

Thomas's blood runs hot, slides the wrong way in his veins and pulses in the base of his throat. The beach twists and fades, becomes an embroiled wash of star-studded blackness and glowing, dancing embers. The ground doesn't feel solid, the world feels fleeting. The only thing he knows with any certainty are Newt's fingers on his neck, his thumb pressing, just enough, into the hollow of his throat and the way his own skin has turned to gooseflesh, prickling with seared nerves under the deliberate swipe of Newt's tongue.

His body rocks, flashfire wanting bolts down his spine, blazing hot, enough to make him light headed and he isn't even thinking - doesn't spare a thought for consequence when he lets his body act without him.

He knocks Newt's hand aside, intent firing through his veins.

He's given everything to the world, kept giving until it nearly took everything he had, everything he was. This...this he's going to take. He's going to keep.

He surges forwards, the night air cold at his back, the fire a welcoming sanctuary that feels like a guardian against everything else.

Thomas's fingers curl around the back of Newt's neck, thumb brushing over the sharp angle of his Adam’s apple, pressing just enough to drag a gasp out of Newt's mouth - right before he seals his own over it.

Newt tastes like wood smoke and honeyed wine, like sea salt and home.

It’s a fierce thing, keen and wanting, but gentle too, a question, an exploration. Newt pushes back into him and Thomas's heart turns over. Even in this, something so new and fragile on a firelit beach, they’re as in tune as they are in everything else.

Thomas breaks away - he doesn't remember when he last breathed, and his vision is spinning, stars colliding. Newt stares at him, eyes blown wide, dilated in the firelight and his mouth soft.

"Well if you wanted some..." Thomas starts, gasps, manages to string a coherent thought together. "You just had to ask."

Newt tilts his head, his eyes flash, something bright, warm, like sunlight in the middle of the night finding its home there. He smiles and reaches forward.

"I'm asking, Tommy."

Thomas's breathing crashes in his chest. Newt's fingers curl around the cord of the necklace he still wears, even if Newt gave it to him when he thought he wouldn’t still be here. He feels it bite into the back of his neck as Newt drags him down.

\--

Sometimes, when Newt was walking the beach and seeing this new life they’d all found, he didn’t think it could be real. It didn’t  _ feel  _ real- not in the way that fear and pain felt real. It felt like a mirage, like all good things were only just out of his grasp, a veil drawn over all that was. But this, Pulling Thomas down over him and chasing his lips with his own?  _ This felt real too _ . 

And Newt devoured that feeling as he devoured Thomas, pushing up and up, diving his tongue into Thomas's mouth and feeling it open up for him without hesitation. He didn’t stop to think about what they were doing or where they were doing it. He didn’t stop to think at all because how could he have missed this? How could he have almost been struck from this world without feeling Thomas yield for him, contour to him?

Newt caressed his hands up from the necklace, feeling Thomas's chest, his racing heartbeat, the way the sharp little groans and gasps that Thomas released while Newt bit and licked into his mouth seemed to grow from there. From his core. And when Newt once again felt his hands curl against Thomas's neck and hold there, he found that he wasn’t satisfied with their position anymore. It was nothing to hook their legs together, to brace his arm in the sand and use the weight of their bodies moving in tandem to flip Thomas over onto his back, with Newt’s hand still at his throat. The movement jarred their hips together with a delicious friction that was so strong it was painful but that only served to darken their eyes more. 

While Thomas, his Tommy,  _his_ Tommy, lay there on his back, pupils blown and gasping for air - Newt feasted his eyes. Because now, after so long, he was allowed to look. Allowed to touch. And so he did. He ran the fingers of his free hand down from Thomas's neck, tracing swirls around his navel and dipping ever lower, smirking as Thomas's stomach tensed and his hips bucked up from underneath Newt. God, he was spectacular.

Newt chanced another glance up at Thomas's face and what he found there took his breath away, so much so that he had to lean forward and catch his lips in his own once more. Newt flexed his hand on Thomas's throat and swallowed the moan that followed it. He pushed his hips downward and felt sparks fly and the stars in the night glowed even brighter at the cry it brought from Thomas's mouth. Each noise he released was music, their bodies a symphony. Their movements an instrument tuned into each other. One last time Newt ventured his hand lower and paused just above the band of Thomas's trousers. He knew the answer, but he had to ask, had to hear it with his own ears that he was wanted. 

“This alright, Tommy?” Newt asked, his voice like molten darkness and soft as breezes in the grass. 

“Yes, God, _ please _ .”

There were no words sweeter. A dam within Newt broke as he took Thomas in hand and silenced his cry with a kiss.

\--

Thomas hates sand. 

He developed a healthy respect for its brutality in the Scorch. It was harsh grit that could tear like shrapnel and if he never saw it again he would have endured too much. But this...this beach isn't the same. The sand under his back - fire warm, golden in the light and silver beyond - isn't vicious.

Fuck - he'd happily spend the rest of his goddamn life laying on this beach if Newt keeps moving like that.

He can't breathe, but he's pretty sure that's overrated. Newt's tongue slides against his, tracing letters onto the roof of his mouth and with every deliberate shift of weight, every purposeful motion of the hand wrapped around him, the pressure coils ever tighter in the base of his spine. Newt's pelvis presses down into his and the gasps tear away from him, swallowed straight down.

Thomas isn't sure who exactly started this anymore, but he's consented and this...this could really be happening.

Thomas fumbles, reaching blindly up and finding heated fabric under his fingers. A shirt - no - Jacket. He pushes at it and at this point he really doesn't care if Newt's jacket ends up in the fucking fire. He wants it off.

Newt chuckles against him, into his mouth, the vibration sinking straight into Thomas's heart, sending it reeling, the pulse erratic and heady. Newt tears away. The loss of his touch is a violent thing, leaves Thomas straining.

"Something you wanted?" Newt asks, a playful glow caught in his eyes even though they're black as night.

"Off," Thomas tells him, sucking in a breath. "Take it off, or I'll do it."

Newt gives him a look that might be pleased or mildly impressed - Thomas can't honestly tell - and then he sits up, pressing his weight down into Thomas hips and - fuck - that was on purpose. Newt tosses the Jacket aside.

"This, too," Thomas tells him, and he tugs the edge of his white shirt, then slides his hand underneath it, pressing firmly into Newt's stomach.

"Fuck, Tommy," Newt mutters. He takes his wrist, pulls it away, thumb rubbing into the pulse that thunders where his tendons meet. "You first."

Well fine.

At this point, he's pretty sure Gally could storm along the beach with a loudhailer and he wouldn't care.

Thomas surges up, catches Newt by the hips to keep him balanced and shrugs out of his own jacket, then tugs his shirt off as well, pulling it up at the back of the neck.

He watches Newt swallow and sharp yearning bolts through his blood. That's what started this.

But Newt loops his finger through the cord still around his neck, now laying against bare skin. it’s cool - the night air curling around the metal capsule - but Thomas barely feels it. The snag at the back of his neck is like lightning, like gravity, like planets falling into alignment. Newt kisses him, and then he pulls away and Thomas can't breathe.

He's pushed back down, and he goes, falls, lets it happen.

Fingers trace down the center of his chest, dart over the dips and valleys of his ribs and then coast further, teasing again at the loosened belt that's pressing into his skin, searing hot between their bodies.

Newt lays his weight down over him, and Thomas takes the opening it gives, hands sliding back inside the shirt he never took off - not yet. Thomas tracks his fingers across skin, reaching high enough and there - his thumb ghosts over the scar tissue left from the blade that nearly took his life.

Newt almost left the world, and they never would have had this.

His heart feels heavy with might have beens and fierce relief, and that's when he feels Newt's mouth close over his throat.

He seizes in a breath, sharp, shocked, so fucking burned up. He swallows, feels Newt's tongue rasp over the motion and he's not playing anymore. Maybe he never was.

"Fuck. Newt. Just..."

"Just what?" Newt asks, close to his skin, voice rough.

"Anything."

\--

“Don’t have the supplies for anythin’ too fancy, love.” Newt gasped, feeling the trails of sensation left by Thomas's roaming fingers down to his very soul. He felt the change in the air when Tommy brushed his scar—the scar that both nearly killed and also saved him. Newt felt his expression soften from intensity to something more… _ more _ . He was alive. **They**   were alive and it’s about time they acted like it. Newt cupped Thomas's face gently and kissed first his eyelids, then his cheeks, and then his forehead, before resting their heads together so they touched at the tips of their noses. 

Funny, despite all that had happened in the past few moments, it was the acts of tenderness that had him shaking. It felt revealing, like he was opening up a part of himself that he couldn’t protect any longer once he let it show - but the trembling, shuddering breaths coming from the man beneath him told Newt he’d nothing to worry about. 

There were words normally said when feelings like this showed their face, but now wasn’t the time for words. It was time for action, to show Thomas that Newt was alive and Newt was his as much as Thomas belonged to him. Newt kissed Thomas slowly, deeply, like he was that first breath of air after drowning. Kissing Thomas like he deserved to be kissed. 

And then he moved, sliding down his body like it was a revelation, and Thomas's trousers melted away before him. And before Newt could doubt himself or think twice he took Thomas into his mouth like he was taking holy communion. His taste, the weight of him against Newts tongue, how Thomas's hips bucked, and the  _sound_   drove him wild. As Newt swiped his tongue around the shaft taking him as deep as he could before beginning again, Newt couldn’t help but think that although he was clearly giving he was  _taking_   as well. Claiming. Worshipping and being worshipped. Thomas was his new religion and to hell with it if Newt wasn’t his disciple.

Thomas fell apart beneath him, with him, for him, winding his fingers through Newt’s hair and shuddering, gasping for air. Thomas was saying his name like a litany, cursing and praising him depending on his actions. When finally Newt felt him close to release, whimpering and begging beneath him for Newt to let him cross that line, Newt dared to look up. And when their eyes met Newt sucked him deep within his mouth once more. Thomas's scream echoed through the heavens and Newt gulped down the explosion of salt on his tongue like it was ambrosia.

\--

Thomas wakes up when he hears the sounds of the world stirring.

He feels slow, warm, but he also aches. It’s the mottled, mixed signal of something good, wanted - a spent kind of ache - with the twinge in his back that's come from sleeping strangely on uneven ground. He's used to it, done it often enough, but he's also not keen to make it habit again. For a moment, he just breathes in. The smell of the sea, the taste of salt is sharp in the morning air, the ashy hint left over from the campfire that burned out. The sound of the others starting their day is distant, muffled far up the beach.

Thomas blinks and winces in the blinding sunlight. He twists away, automatic, and that's when he realizes he's still warm because Newt is pressed against him.

The sunlight seems to fade - no longer beating a headache into his skull allowing it to clear and fill instead with soft awe.

They slept out here. All night. Newt stayed.

Well to be honest, he's not sure he remembers who fell asleep first, but they both stayed. And it’s not like he’s honestly surprised, it’s not that he expected Newt to leave, but this is his mind catching up to what his body already knew.

They're both tucked in beside one of the logs, arranged end to end in a circle about the firepit, which is empty, full of silvered ash and crumbled twigs. Their clothes are in disarray - some still missing - and very soon the world will come for them. It will start to demand again.

Thomas reaches out, traces his fingers up Newt's side, the skin cool in the open air. Touching Newt stops the world. That's all he wants right now.

Or...well...the memories from the smoky, firelight night that he never even dreamed he'd get invade; the press of skin, the giving and the taking, the way Newt's voice had sounded, cracked and broken and desperate against the call of the sea. Maybe stopping the world isn't all he wants, but right now, in sharp daylight he'll take it.

Newt shifts and his expression scrunches, apparently starting to process as he wakes that the sensation of laying on the beach isn't normal.

The next time, there will be a hammock, a bed. Something.

\--

Morning pulled at him too soon, and Newt felt that although he'd barely slept it had been worth it. So worth it, as long as he could open his eyes and it wasn't a dream. He could hear the sounds of the ocean waves rocking into the sand and feel the gentle press of where fingertips traced his side. Newt couldn't help but smile in relief.

He didn't know how much later he'd stayed awake after Thomas had finally fallen asleep, but he knew that it was long enough that the sky had just barely begun to lighten.

He'd been afraid, he could admit it. Afraid that in the bright dawn Thomas would look back at what they'd done and be ashamed, or embarrassed by it, and that they wouldn't know where to pick up the broken pieces of Newt that would shatter if that had been Thomas's reaction. So, awake he'd stayed, finding peace in the gentle rise and fall of Tommy's chest, memorizing the way his eyelashes flickered as he dreamed. Thomas was beautiful like that. Not that he wasn't beautiful anyway, but there was something special about how a person's face relaxed in sleep and they looked so innocent.

But innocent was not what he would call his Tommy after last night, and he hoped that they would be able to expand on that fun new fact in a place with less... sand. 

Finally, when it seemed as though morning would halt for no one, Newt opened his eyes and was greeted with Thomas's face just bare inches from his, a tender look in his eyes.

Newt melted at the sight and he couldn't help but reach out and touch, just to make sure he was real. When Newt's palm fully cupped Thomas's face and his thumb ran along his cheekbone Thomas turned and gave his palm a quick kiss. Such a simple thing shouldn't spread fire to his toes but Newt supposed after last night he couldn't be blamed.

Their moment of peace, however, was cut far too short by the sight of figures moving just over the hill. If he and Thomas didn't clothe themselves quickly then they'd have to do far more explaining than he was sure either of them wanted… it wasn’t that he wanted to keep it a secret, he just wanted it private, for a bit. Just something to hold for himself. For now.

Newt sprang into action and tore himself from Thomas's warm grasp, grabbing clothes and throwing them as he went - not paying nearly as much attention as to whose he was grabbing as he should have been - muttering, "Clothes, clothes, clothes, love,  _ hurry _ !"

\--

The truth is, Thomas doesn't even realize he's wearing Newt's t-shirt until almost four hours later as he's trudging back up the beach with Gally, Frypan and Vince, the four of them hauling driftwood from where its washed up on the coast.

They're approaching the camp and the muffled noises of life starting over start to space out into distinct voices and familiar words.

"Sonya-what-where did you even-?"

"Hush," Sonya tells Aris, batting his hands down as she adjusts the crown of flowers, laced together and in early bloom, on his head. "Don't ask questions. And don't argue - I was tortured. You're basically obligated to humor me."

Harriet smirks down at the machete she's cleaning beside them.

Aris’ eyes fly wide, the wreath of flowers askew as he jerks back. “You were tor-- _ I _ was tortured, too! You don’t get dibs!”

Thomas's gaze drifts from them, across to Minho - and his heart turns over in his chest. Newt's stood with him, the pair of them apparently deep in conversation over one of the makeshift tables where Gally had left building plans.

And that's when he realizes.

Newt's wearing his shirt.

Neither of them have had clothes that properly fit for a long time - perhaps ever - so it’s not the ill fit that makes it recognizable. Honestly, they sort of have a communal laundry rota and just pluck out whatever is clean and works, unless anyone has a particular attachment to anything. Gally is tallest, so the longest pants are kept for him. No one touches Vince's bandana and Brenda looked ready to shoot a guy for taking a sweater she had claimed back in the Scorch. But mostly things are bandied around the same way they share their trauma, their pain, and their desperation to hold on.

So, the others may well have not realized at all the significance of this. It’s just that Thomas is acutely aware that he was wearing that particular shirt less than twenty-four hours ago before he pulled it over his own head and threw it away on a darkened beach. Which means...yep. He's been helping the others to haul driftwood, all the while wearing Newt's discarded shirt.

And it's only then that he also registers the way the fabric on the inside of the right arm is worn thin. Its a shirt Newt’s owned for a while, and the seam there is weak, the stitching fraying. Thomas frowns, fingers reaching automatically to press into the damage - and he stops dead when the realization hits.

The world narrows down, the sea falls silent, and his nerves snap with cold dread.

They all have their demons, and this is Newt's. The ghost of the disease that almost claimed his life.

Thomas's fingers rub over the fabric and he feels his skin prickle underneath.

This is what Newt does. What he’s been doing, probably since he woke up. Rubbing, checking, fearing the day it might come back. Thomas hates it.

“I know,” Frypan says, out of nowhere, and Thomas's head snaps up.

Gally and Vince are ahead of them and Fry’s voice was too quiet to carry. He looks sad but understanding. “I’ve only caught him once or twice, and he usually shrugs it off, but I know. I figured he was trying harder to keep it from you because you worry enough.”

“Fry- “Thomas begins, and then he shuts his mouth. He doesn’t know what he was going to say. But then that thought is chased clean away by another, a stronger one that makes his blood rush up, heat beneath his skin. “Wait,” he says, eyes leaping to Frypan’s. “But this is- “

“Newt’s shirt?” Frypan asks, now with something bright and smug in his voice. “Yeah I know. Gally might, I think Minho does, but I don’t know if anyone else has much of a clue.” Then Fry’s voice goes soft, purposeful. “You almost died for everyone here, Thomas. You both deserve the chance to live for yourselves.”

“And if anyone says otherwise,” Gally calls back – proving he evidently could hear, at least some of it – “I’ll hand their asses to them.”

\--

It wasn’t that there was something  _wrong_   with Gally’s building plans, it was just that they didn’t have the bloody supplies to build the damn things. 

“Yes, I can see that Minho, but even with driftwood there is no way that we can assume we’ll be able to build it all. We have to prioritize, do it all in a good  _ order _ .” Newt explained for what felt like the thousandth time.

He was tired, exhausted, and what brain power he did have was most certainly not focused on building anything other than another warm fire and having a conversation with the man he’d been separated from since they’d gotten dressed that morning. And if Minho smirked at him one more time he was going to take one of the hammers lying near the makeshift table and beat him with it. 

“What.” Newt demanded, but once again Minho just grinned and provided no answer.

For fucks sake.

Newt felt irritation rise within and his hand immediately went to rub his arm. No pain, no flare, just normal irritation. The healthy kind. The mirth in Minho’s eyes dimmed for a moment before they brightened right back up again, and Newt heard voices coming up from behind them. Thomas, Vince, Gally, and Frypan were returning with more driftwood. 

“Hey Gally,” Minho started, and Newt did not like the tone of voice he used. “Newt here thinks there’s a problem with your plans.”

Gally raised one of his famous eyebrows, dropped the log he was holding, and charged over. “Okay well I’d like to see what he can do better! What’s the problem?”

Newt groaned, wiping his tired eyes before bracing his hands on the table. “There’s no problem, Gally. Minho’s just being a slinthead. The plans are lovely, but we just don’t have enough resources to carry them out.”

The others came up to the table, and that’s when he noticed what Thomas was wearing. Newt looked at Thomas's shirt, then his own, and then back at Thomas's, willing his brain to stop lagging behind and to keep up with the situation at hand. 

Bugger.

Newt’s eyes widened when he finally caught on to what had happened - their mad rush on the beach to get dressed and sprint to their tasks. He knew he was being obvious, that everyone was quiet and letting him work it all out for himself. There would be hell to pay for this later. Newt couldn’t make himself look Thomas in the face because he knew that he would lose it - what he would be losing, he wasn’t sure, but he knew it wouldn’t be good. 

“Hello, lo-Tom-Thomas. Thomas. And... everyone.” Shit fuck buggering bloody shucking hell what was _ that _ ?! Newt squeezed his eyes shut and bit his lip, questioning whatever deity decided to not be on his side today, before clearing his throat and forcing his eyes open, back to the task at hand. Maybe no one had noticed. “Resources. We either need more, or we need to alter the order we build things, priorities and all that. Decide what can wait until later.”

His friends were all just staring blankly at him, and Vince seemed to be about to have a bloody seizure he was shaking so hard. Newt glared at him until he excused himself and walked away. 

Thomas was smiling, why did Thomas have to be smiling?

“Well at least we can save resources because clearly the two of  you  shucks will be sharing a hut,” Gally said slowly, looking like a kid on Christmas. 

Newt resolutely ** refused ** to look over at Minho. 

“Come on guys, let the man work,” Frypan said, god bless him. Frypan started leading Gally and Thomas away to continue their search for wood. “You know he didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”

Newt closed his eyes once more, contemplating murder, and he grabbed his arm for reassurance again. Here’s the thing, Newt wasn’t awkward. He wasn’t ashamed of what he and Thomas had done. At all. But he’d almost called him love in front of their friends and they apparently all knew anyway and there would be teasing, merciless teasing, and... He didn’t want that. 

Thomas was a good thing. The first thing Newt ever had that was completely good, not manipulated or manufactured, just good and his, and he hadn’t been ready for people to poke fun at it. 

“Hey,” Minho said softly, as he pulled Newt’s hand away from his arm. “We don’t care, Newt. We’re honestly happy that you two figured it out... I mean I have no idea what happened with your words back there because what the hell? But we don’t mean anything by it. Really.”

Newt sighed. 

“I’m just tired, Minho, and I wasn’t ready for all that yet,” he said. 

Minho nodded. “That’s fair. Tell you what, I’ll steer you clear from the others for the rest of the day, you get your head figured out, and you give me the go ahead for when I can make fun of you? Sound good?”

Minho didn’t give him a chance to respond before he started frog marching him away to do god knows what. “And trust me, buddy. I’ve got _ so much material _ .”

\--

Thomas is distracted. 

He feels like he's been living between two states for as long as he remembers; sharp, pulsing adrenaline that brings everything into hyper focus, tunneling his vision into single goals, and then this...just total inability to think with a clear head. He's been drugged in a shanty town nightclub, drunk on Gally's brew, winded and concussed. But this is the first time he can remember being distracted in quite this way. It’s...different, good, maybe. Except he's not quite sure.

"Are you still tying those together, Greenie?" Thomas startles, fingers slipping on the leather laces and he glances over at Gally who's wearing a stern expression edged with amusement. 

"Still with the Greenie?" Thomas asks, wearily.

He has...a tentatively friendly relationship with Gally, mostly. There's a part of him that can't quite forgive Chuck, can't quite let it go completely, but he knows Chuck wouldn't want that and he knows that wasn't really Gally all that time ago either. This is a Gally he never got to see; the one that's trying so hard to build a new life for them, who looks out for everyone. This Gally came back for them in a burning city even though he was meant to be on the bus when it left.

This Gally smirks in the evening light, the sky a vast gradient above them, streaked in violet and gold as the sun falls into the ocean. "You prefer Shank?" he asks, and Thomas scoffs in laughter as he remembers that first night in the Glade. It feels like a lifetime ago. And maybe it was, in a way.

"Are you two still here?"

Thomas and Gally both look up. Brenda is braced against the doorway of the half-built hut they're standing in, her hands in her back pockets. She nods her head to the open beach. "Get a move on; or there won't be any soup left."

"Soup?" Gally asks. "No way."

Brenda gives him a look somewhere between 'How is this of note in any way?' and 'duh, that's what I said'.

Gally slaps Thomas over the back and he rocks forwards under the impact.

"Fry's soup, Man," he says. "Brenda, this is what you missed in the Scorch."

"What?" she asks, supremely unimpressed. "The slightly purple looking sludge in that cauldron he stole from a witches' hut?" Even as she speaks, she leans off the door to let Gally slip past her. Thomas blinks; the motion has a quiet gentleness to it. It’s...interesting.

Its ammunition, is what it is.

He's going to need to start collecting that. He just needs to be careful how he uses it. He's learned a healthy respect for Brenda's ability to castrate a man with words.

“Come on,” Brenda says to him, apparently unaware Thomas is planning how to use this information against her without putting his life in danger. “This I have to see.”

Thomas shakes his head, smiling, and stands. It’s late anyway. The three of them head down from the edge of the camp to where the fire glows, casting a halo of golden light across the beach. The water ripples in ribbons of indigo and gold and the fire licks into the cooling air as people begin to cluster around its warmth.

Thomas sees Newt’s familiar shape, crouched in the sand and taking the logs Minho passes him to help fan the fire. Immediately Thomas is reminded why he’s so distracted.

Newt called him Thomas earlier. Right after the broken off word that Thomas's brain has been spinning over and over since the second it happened. He remembers the sudden rush of that morning all too well – the way Newt had moved faster than he’d thought his leg would allow, separating out their clothes and…and he hadn’t called him Thomas then. Or Tommy.

Love.

It was a British thing. Whatever else the Swipe took, it hadn’t taken that knowledge. Thomas had just never heard Newt say it before. It was…different, unexpected but not at all unwelcome. He’d almost said it again later, but half swallowed his tongue in the process and Thomas couldn’t help smiling, wondering if it’s something he’s been holding back all this time. He’s a little okay with it – it’s almost like this way, it’s just his, not something Minho or Gally or anyone else gets to have, to use.

But he also can’t help the flash of uncertainty that bolts down the back of his neck that maybe…Newt hadn’t meant it at all.

Brenda and Gally have moved ahead, aiming for Frypan who stands by the ring of logs with a huge dustbin sized pot that’s steaming into the evening light.

Thomas moves for Newt. It’s automatic at this point, like gravity, like the tide pulling him out. With Newt is where he wants to be.

He’s sitting on the edge of the log when Thomas reaches him. There’s a charred stick between his hands – something to stoke the fire – and his hair is a mess. Minho slides a look across at them that is suddenly full of a kind of rich, dark glee and Thomas knows he’s going to be hell.

But Minho doesn’t say a word. He nods and walks right off, around the fire to where Frypan is trying to persuade Brenda to try his soup.

“Hey Tommy,” Newt says, voice soft and stripped bare in the quickly failing light. “Rough day?”

Thomas thinks of the worn fabric on the sleeve of his – Newt’s – shirt, thinks of waking up on the beach with Newt’s skin under his fingers, thinks of the hours and chores that have fallen between them since. And he sighs, dropping down onto the log so that his leg presses warmly into Newt’s.

“Pretty rough,” he says. “And also…you didn’t call me that this morning.”

\--

Newt couldn't help the smirk from sliding to his lips. "As I recall, I've called you quite a few names in the past twenty-four hours," Newt began, but at seeing the way Thomas's eyes shuttered just the slightest bit when the conversation clearly didn't go in the direction that he wanted it to go in, Newt changed tactics. "None of them more or less important than each other."

Newt reached out and poked at the flames with his stick, more for something to do with his hands than anything else.

Thomas looked good, extremely good, sitting there in the firelight, so close to Newt that they were touching, that there was no mistaking it for an indeliberate act when there was still plenty of room on the log. He'd used his time mapping out of more the island with Minho earlier in day to sort out his head a bit. Partly because he knew that Minho's vow of silence wouldn't last forever, but also because he truly needed to get his head on right before he and Thomas moved forward anymore.

Newt decided that part of the problem was that he'd spent so long dreaming of this, of wishing for it and hoping for it, and then being crushed by the absolute certainty he would never get it, that he still considered it this delicate, damageable thing. As though some force, some hardship, could swoop in and take it from him. But that wasn't possible, he knew that. Newt had known since the Scorch that Thomas felt it too. That he was just as drawn, just as curious by this other boy as the boy was about him. He'd had it damn near confirmed in those long months they planned to rescue Minho, and by the time Newt nearly died in Thomas's arms he'd known it for a fact that he and Thomas were as inevitable as the dawn, if only time would for once be on their side.

So, while he and Minho found vestiges of an older civilization and plotted them on their map, walking so much that his leg nearly fell off from being overworked, Newt remembered all the ways he and Thomas had fallen together, over and over again. Culminating in the two of them falling into place together last night like two halves of a whole, and it had been as easy as breathing, would always be as easy as breathing, because it was just how things were meant to be. They had each been shattered so many times and rebuilt into this entity that wasn't complete without the other. 

So, when he put it all like that? What on Earth did he have to be afraid of?

"Is that so?" Thomas asked, a lick of delight flowing into his uncertain demeanor, but the self-doubt hadn’t gone from him entirely. Newt sighed and leaned back further on their log, stretching out his bad leg and trying to ignore the throb of pain that came from it.

Thomas was a man of action, words weren’t always the best route to take with him, especially when more often than not your words couldn’t be heard over the ones being spoken in Thomas's own head. Unfortunately, Newt was not Sonya. He wasn’t going to climb into Thomas's lap and stare adoringly down at his eyes like the blonde girl was currently doing with Harriet. It was the glint of metal in the fire and the memory of Newt using that cord to pull Thomas down to meet him in a moment of passion that gave him the idea.

“Tommy,” Newt said. “Were you aware that the necklace you’re wearing opens?”

Thomas's eyes widened, and he moved to clutch the small pendant tightly in his palm. “Take that as a no, then. Well, how about this. I’m going to go and grab us a few bowls of soup before Gally dumps it all over Brenda in an attempt to make her notice him, and you open that up and have a look at what’s inside.” Newt used his fire stick as a crutch to help pivot himself onto his feet, but not before he turned, leaned down, and gave Thomas the slightest, feather light, brush of lips against his brow. “I have a feeling that what you find in there might do a better job of explaining things than I ever will,” Newt finished with a whisper.

As he sauntered off, heart pounding in his ears at the thought of Thomas reading what Newt had thought would be his final words to him, Newt took notice of everyone that had been watching them. It was a sizable portion of people around the fire, surprisingly including Sonya and Harriet who Newt had assumed were a bit too caught up in their own world to notice the color of the sky let alone two boys fumbling through emotions. Then again, he’d caught Sonya staring quite a lot recently - though he chalked it up to her being nervous about the status of his health, which was annoying but not entirely unreasonable.

Newt nodded at the onlookers before approaching the group around Frypan. Minho must have spoken to them, because although they smiled, not a word was spoken. He could tell that a healthy amount of restraint was used on their parts and it was wholeheartedly appreciated.

However, no one seemed to have updated Brenda.

“What is Thomas reading, and why does he look like you just killed Bark?” Brenda asked, clearly craning her neck to get a better look at Thomas, who now sat holding the papers in one hand with the other covering his mouth.

Minho, Gally, and Frypan all looked at Newt, concern on their faces. “It’s okay,” Newt reassured them, unknowingly brushing both the scar from the knife and his once infected arm. “Everything is alright now. Tommy’s just… catching up.” 

Newt made grabby motions for bowls of food, and received them, though there was no escaping the suspicious stares. But he just smiled and turned away from there, back to where Thomas sat with his mouth opened, and a shine to his eyes, looking at Newt as though he held the answers to the universe- and not all of them were good.

\--

Reading the slanted, shaky words etched into the creased pieces of paper is like tearing himself open to the desolate, hollowing concept of a whole new reality.

These were the last things Newt ever truly thought he'd say to him.

Knowing that, holding that in his hands makes his blood turn cold, his heart skitters with horror and he's dizzied by the sudden all-consuming nothing that takes over in his head, leaving only those words behind, playing on a loop.

Sensation dissolves, cold and hot losing all meaning, and the sounds of the camp bustling around with their supper fade into obscurity, dimming along with the always constant sounds of the ocean. He glances up, catches Newt’s eye across the fire and feels everything constrict inside him. Newt is waylaid by Vince, and Thomas's eyes drop back to the pages, almost relieved but still too tightly wound, too shaken to feel it.

_ I remember you _

_ I would follow you anywhere. And I have _

_ I wouldn't change a thing _

_ When you're looking back, years from now, you'll be able to say the same _

This letter was meant for a different life.

It was written for a different Thomas, one who would be sitting here on this beach, surrounded with survivors, but also desperately alone. It’s a version of himself, a version of a future that Thomas can't breathe in, isn't sure he ever wants to. It’s a dark, pulsating, empty place and just reading words meant for it are choking him.

“Whoa, Dude, you do not look good.”

Thomas looks up and the world slams into him, like he’s been hit by Brenda’s out of service bus. Minho looks somewhere between genuinely worried and hesitantly amused.

“He looks fine.”

Thomas's brain spins as Newt appears again.

Minho glances across, and his eyes actually roll. “You would say that.”

Newt shoots him a glare that could kill off cockroaches at fifty yards and Minho swallows but doesn’t have the decency to look any more remorseful.

“Minho,” Newt begins, voice level, even quiet, but with a very particular note of ‘I’m absolutely shucking done’ “Sod off or the girls will be picking your charred remains out of the fire.”

Thomas coughs on the shock-turned laughter that bursts in his throat and Minho whistles sharply as he spins on his heel and immediately walks away.

Newt rolls his eyes now, and Thomas looks at him, outlined in firelight, in time to see him mouth something that looks suspiciously like ‘knew it wouldn’t shucking last’. Then, shaking his head and apparently letting it go, he drops back onto the warm log beside Thomas.

Thomas's stomach knots – he’s here, not gone, it was a different life, not his – but the cold dread remains. It’s muted now, an undercurrent only against the secure knowledge that whatever it is he’s been feeling, processing…he was never in that alone. He thought, at times, that he wasn’t; he suspected, and he hoped, distantly, in the only way he could allow for himself when the world was in ruin and Minho was lost. But this…this is certainty. This is tangible.

Newt wrote this for him. He wrote it to let him go if he never made it.

“Tommy?” Newt asks quietly, glancing over at him. He’s still balancing two bowls of soup in his lap, patient and quiet. His face is easy and soft, eyes golden in the light of the fire, no uncertainty or trepidation there. Any last doubts Thomas had snuff out, turn to dust.

They’re both alive, and everything else was always going to lead them here.

Its impulsive, just a touch like playing with fire, but he can’t help it, not now. He rocks to the side, just a little, enough to reach and press a kiss to the side of Newt’s head.

“I wouldn’t change a thing,” Thomas says, already resting back beside him.

Newt is blinking, smiling tenderly but that’s when his eyes flash down to the pages between Thomas's fingers, even as he furls them tightly up and slips them back into the necklace. He swallows and without permission, Thomas's eyes dart to the motion in his throat. A bolt of warm, remembered heat and fierce affection shoots down his spine.

“I wouldn’t,” Newt says. His voice rasps, just a little.

Thomas shakes his head as he lets the necklace settle back against his chest. Then he reaches out, takes one of the bowls and sets it on the log beside him so that he can turn Newt’s arm over. He traces his fingers, feather light but purposeful down the inside of the other boy’s forearm, mapping across the rough fabric of the sleeve that covers healthy skin.

Newt inhales, a soft sound lost in the crack of the fire and the hum of voices. Thomas doesn’t even care. Frypan could throw his ladle at them and he probably wouldn’t notice if it took his eye out. Not that Fry’s aim is that accurate with implements not designed as projectiles.

Newt doesn’t move, just watches Thomas tread patterns down to his wrist before reaching his palm and lacing their fingers together. He’s warm and his pulse beats strong and fierce where their wrists press.

Thomas speaks, and its quiet, but firm, because Newt needs to hear this.

“I wouldn’t change anything because you’re still here.”

\--

Newt hadn’t known what to say, and so he chose to say nothing at all and instead bask in the warmth from the fire and the feel of Thomas's hand resting in his own like it belonged there. They ate their soup in comfortable silence, sheltered from the crowd around them in a bubble of their own making. They were watched, yes, but Newt felt the gazes on them as one would gaze at the stars - curious and admiring, appreciative but respectful. The peace allowed to them wouldn’t last long - in a day or so they’d be forced to join with their friends again, endure the teasing and the laughs, but Newt would enjoy the silence gifted to them while they had it.

“Would you walk with me?” Newt asked, deciding that the ache in his leg was worth it to have a stroll away from prying eyes, where he could be as soft as staring at Thomas reading the letter made him want to be. 

“You really need to ask that question?” Thomas chuckled before pulling them both to their feet and moving towards the ocean, still holding Newt’s hand tightly. 

Once Newt had woken up alive on the island, to no one’s greater surprise than his own, he hadn’t known what to do about the letter Thomas wore around his neck. For a day or so he’d toyed with the idea of stealing it back before Tommy could read it, but that never sat well with him. It was... difficult not to remember the state he was in while writing it. A million separate times he’d tried to write that letter, to both thank Thomas and free him, to let him know that he always lived in Newt’s heart, and even with the final draft he hadn’t been happy. It was difficult to convey how he’d felt but to leave Thomas with something still _ good _ . 

Of course, Newt never could have guessed how good it would turn out. 

Thomas let Newt keep the silence until their toes danced in the waves but then his impatience appeared to win out. “What are you thinking about?”

“You.” Newt said simply, smirking at Thomas, enjoying the way the moonlight reflected from the waves onto his skin. “I must say I appreciate you not giving me hell for choking on my own tongue earlier.”

Laughter... Thomas's laughter was something Newt could listen to for hours on end. It needed to happen more. It took his companion a few moments to gather himself.

“I, uh, kind of figured Minho would do enough of that for the both of us.” Thomas said, though he swung their entwined hands together a bit while doing so, taking any sting out of the words. 

“Yes, well, Minho is keeping his silence until about lunchtime tomorrow before letting loose. I can’t decide if it’ll be worse to get it all at once or not.”

“How’d you manage that?” Thomas asked. 

“I’m told I’m very persuasive,” Newt said mischievously, hoping that Thomas would take the bait. 

He didn’t disappoint. 

“Not... too persuasive, I hope?”

Newt turned so that he was facing Thomas, the warm waves gently rushing over their feet every now and again. “C’mon now, love, don’t tell me you’re jealous?” 

Love. It suited Thomas well, among the nighttime and the ocean.

\--

Thomas laughs into the night air, inhaling sea salt and stardust, the faint traces of wood smoke on the breeze are all that remains of the bonfire at the distance they've walked. The camp is a silhouette high up the coast and the firepit a glowing bubble of warmth, family and life in the silvery sand.

Thomas looks across at Newt, who's tilting his head, studying him with an expression that's soft in a way that's fast becoming familiar and addictive. "Not jealous, no," Thomas refutes, still letting his laughter fade away, tugged out with the tide. "But it does depend on the methods of persuasion."

Newt tugs on their joined hands and Thomas has to quickly catch his balance, splashing up the surf as he's brought into Newt's space. Quickly, like a flash of lightning, Newt reaches up, fingers curling through that damn necklace cord again - Thomas is definitely never taking it off - to hold him still so he can kiss him. Thomas gasps on instinct, surprised, unprepared, and it lets Newt flick his tongue teasingly, pointedly, over the roof of Thomas's mouth. He's already kissing back, but Newt draws away too soon, a smirk across his lips that's negated by the honesty in his eyes, almost inky black in the night.

"Don't worry, love," Newt says, so quiet, "Some methods are only for you."

"Just checking," Thomas says, still reeling. He glances behind them, all the way up the beach - they've walked so far, he absently hopes Newt's leg isn't bothering him, though he seems content enough. "Minho's really...okay?"

Thomas doesn't think Minho has a problem with whatever it is they're becoming, it’s just that...he and Minho spent a night in the Maze all that time ago, and they found something there, forged it in the way that only that kind of peril can carve a friendship that endures. Thomas never felt about Minho quite the same way as he realized he came to feel for Newt, but that friendship means the world to him and Minho has suffered a lot in the time it took them to get him back. He just never wants Minho to feel he's being set aside or excluded...even if he did seem to be reveling in the whole thing right now.

Thomas is relieved Newt seems to immediately get this is what he means.

"He's being a Tosser," Newt says plainly, accent broadening over the affectionate insult. It probably shouldn't, but it sends a current running through Thomas's bloodstream, surging like the sea they're standing in. "But," Newt continues, "I think he's fine. It’s been the three of us at the middle of this since the day you showed up and that’s not going to change.”

Thomas bites his lip – tastes Newt there – against the sudden smile that fights its way onto his face. “I don’t know,” he says. “I mean, there’s saving resources and then there’s just having a crowded cabin.”

He watches as Newt blinks, turns to look at him, and then, after a suspended moment, shakes his head, the moon reflecting in his eyes.

“Oh, we’re definitely not sharing a hut with him. He talks in his sleep. Fry can deal with that.”

Thomas's breath catches in his chest and the silhouette of their small camp; the first building blocks of a new world, suddenly feels a little bit more real, a little bit more like a future.

“We’re really going to do that, then?” Thomas asks, fierce wanting and hope blazing under his skin, fingers squeezing between Newt’s. “Share a hut?”

Newt lifts up their linked hands and loops his arm around Thomas's neck, leaning his weight in.

His leg, Thomas remembers, and he quickly wraps his free arm around Newt’s back to support him.

“A hut,” Newt agrees, placidly. “A hammock – they make them big enough for Gally, so we’ll be fine-“ that sends another burning pulse down Thomas's spine, “A home, Tommy.”

\--

Thomas's arms held fast around him, squeezing all the tighter at the mention of a home in direct correlation with the pressure squeezing around Newt’s own heart. He wanted this life. He wanted it so badly that his nerves were alight with electricity and he was positive that he must have been glowing bright enough to rival the moon. 

“A home,” Thomas repeated, and the awe in his voice was almost heartrending, because when had any of them ever thought they could have anything like a home? The closest they’d had to it was the Glade, but even then, was a constant threat of the ever pressing ** something  ** that had them looking over their shoulders and sleeping with one eye open. And so, the Gladers instead found a home in each other, a home that moved with them through the Scorch and WCKD and all of the trials that they fought through in order to reach where they were now- where they all didn’t make it, and though they mourned they were endlessly grateful that even these few had a chance. 

A chance for home. 

“Sounds nice, yeah?” Newt asked, arm slung around Thomas's shoulders and the other hand absentmindedly toying with the necklace on his chest- thoroughly enjoying the way Thomas's breath caught at every little tug. Truth be told, Newt was simply making sure that the tube was sealed tight enough so that the painstakingly written words inside weren’t damaged. “You know Tommy, don’t think I didn’t notice that you seem to have stolen my shirt this morning,” Newt said, feeling the impishness rise inside him. 

“I stole _ your _ shirt?!” Thomas exclaimed. “If I remember correctly you were the one who was throwing clothes around like a luna— “

Newt didn’t give him a chance to finish. One moment he was standing, warm, supported, cuddling with Thomas on the edge of the Ocean... and the next he was shifting his weight and sending Thomas sprawling forward into the waves.

Newt let out a surprised giggle at his own foolishness, and then clapped a hand over his mouth to keep any more from escaping. But it was no use. The look on Thomas's face was absolutely priceless, staring up at Newt in wonder and disbelief, mouth gaping open like a fish and hair plastered to the contours of his scalp. “I’m sorry, I’m- I dunno what came over me, I swear,” Newt tried to explain himself between bursts of outrageous laughter- laughter that only died when he spotted a look that promised a swift and sure revenge. 

“No. No, Tommy, don’t you dare— “

He dared. But evidently he dared very gently, because instead of swiping out a leg to knock Newt down, Thomas surged up out of the water to pick Newt up safely in his wet, squishy arms, and then let himself fall backwards into the water again. 

Affection, true and deep, flooded Newt. Even in their combined laughter and joy, splashing about like children, Newt couldn’t help but to snuggle deeper into where Tommy still held him cuddled up in the water, grab hold of the necklace once more, and pull him in for a kiss that was all sharp edges and smiles because they couldn’t stop laughing. 

Eventually they calmed through the kiss as it deepened and Newt let his hands smooth over the planes of Thomas's shoulders and chest, appreciating the way the wet clothes stuck to skin and gave form to what lay beneath. He knew, he did, that there was so much that needed to be done. They needed resources, and books, and supplies, and organization and the whole camp—all two hundred of them— seemed to be looking to the Gladers and the remains of Group B to help them get it. They were the ones who had the most experience in building a life out of nothing, though the adults were more than willing to help. They had a long road ahead of them but Newt couldn’t help but think with Thomas's lips on his, he never wanted this night to end.

\--

They stumble away from the surf long moments later.

They're both soaked through, the tropical warmth of the water cooling pleasantly in the star-scattered stillness. Thomas catches Newt's arms, steadying him as they trudge up the beach to where the footing is dry. It’s there, turning to look behind them, at the furrows carved into the wet sand and the way the tide laps up into them, that Thomas fully realizes what just happened.

They just pulled each other into the ocean for a water fight.

It’s something he never thought he'd do; get this chance to act like the kid he never got to be, but also get to enjoy the simplicity of freedom with someone he loves. They can really have this. They can keep it.

They can...

"How long until we can push Gally in?" Thomas asks.

This feels like a relevant question suddenly. A very important one. It doesn't get an answer.

Newt bursts out laughing beside him. The sound fills the world, golden like sunlight, carefree and elated. Thomas wheels away from the ocean, desperate to see it for himself, and that's the same second that the sound cuts off. It was short, too short. Newt stands with his hand clapped over his mouth, eyes wide and almost alarmed. Thomas is done seeing that expression on any of his friend's faces - especially Newt's, especially when it replaces his laughter.

He's not thinking, really - loves, revels in the fact he doesn't have to anymore, that he can just reach out and touch - and he does, snatches Newt's hand away from his mouth, tugs him forwards from the back of his neck and kisses him over the slight inhale of pleased surprise. Thomas is fast getting used to how the rest of the world just...falls away when he touches Newt. He likes it, wouldn't trade it for anything.

"You're laughing," Thomas says when he pulls back, and he can hear the warm, glowing awe in his own voice. "I don't think I've ever heard you laugh like that. Don't stop."

"There hasn't been much reason to," Newt replies, and he's trying to sound serious, but his eyes are bright and he's pliant under Thomas's hands, the smile still playing at his mouth. "And not ever?"

Thomas chuckles, leaning up to press a firm kiss to Newt's forehead. "Only if you have to."

Newt does laugh then, shaking his head in fondness. He takes Thomas's hand again, linking their fingers and tugging gently backwards. "Come on. Dry clothes."

 

The rest of the camp is still by the firepit, so the huts and tents are empty, shadowy shapes between the seagrass and heather.

Newt steers the way, Thomas keeping his arm pressed around his waist to try to take extra strain off of his leg, and then they both duck into the wide, low hut that’s been built over a natural tide pool to the edge of the camp. This is their communal laundry room. Driftwood slabs have been secured with bits of mangled metal from Vince’s old cruise ship to form a patchwork of shelves on one side and woven reed baskets lay around, stacked high with both discarded clothes and clean items. There are a handful of grey shirts still floating in the tide pool, air pockets trapped in the fabric.

The plan is for them to pick up some fresh clothes and leave behind the soaking ones to join tomorrow’s laundry rota. Everyone just drops by for clean things anyway; it would never be noticed or questioned.

But plans never seem to work when Thomas is involved, and this one goes awry as he tugs his soaked shirt over his head and feels Newt’s fingers slide down his back, chasing ocean tears.

He spins around, and they crash together – skin slick, clothes cast to the ground again as they follow. The world is so very distant as their linked hands press into the sand, gasped breaths fill the hut and their hearts race in tandem, lighting pulses fired through nerves. Thomas has one last thought that night, as exhaustion pulls him to sleep beside Newt, hidden by the woven baskets and the rocks surrounding the tide pool. They’re already making a habit of waking up in strange places around Haven.

Maybe that will convince Gally to build their home faster.

\--

“Oh my god, oh my god, Harriet, why would you let me see this?! There are just some things a girl does NOT need to know about her brother, put some bloody clothes on!”

Shrieking. Shrieking is what Newt woke up to, jack-knifing into a sitting position and looking about wildly, eyes finally landing on the laughing form of Harriet and the mortified image of Sonya who was red faced and turning her back towards them. Memory flirted across his brain as Newt got his bearings, feeling Thomas stirring next to him, mumbling. They’d fallen asleep in the laundry and evidently the lack of sun waking them up meant they’d overslept long enough for someone to find them. Newt rubbed his eyes and grabbed a shirt, brain slow to function as always. 

Thomas was sitting up, wide eyed and fully clothed before Newt managed to get an arm into his sleeve. 

“Newt,” Thomas asked, voice incredulous, “Did she just say brother?”

Newt’s heart stopped as he replayed the loud shrieking in his mind. And then he jumped to his feet, ignoring that he was half in and half out of his shirt, and turned to stare at Sonya. “What the fuck did you just say?”

And that was how Newt found out he had a little sister, partially clothed in the laundry with both his and Thomas's mouths gaping open in disbelief.

 

It took a long while to get the whole story; Harriet and Thomas had left them to be alone together hours ago, but eventually Newt heard it all. Sonya’s life in her version of the Maze, their escape, the Scorch, her capture by WCKD, the memories returned to her. Newt learned of his life before the Maze- not much of it, but every little bit mattered. It was mind boggling and emotional and he had no idea what to think of it. Or what to do about it.

The Gladers and the rest of Haven were thrilled at the news, any piece of joy the world offered was a celebration, and they’d held a party of sorts in honor of the two siblings with fair hair and strange voices. Later that night, when Newt had Thomas curled up with him drifting off to sleep, Newt couldn’t keep the bewildered smile off of his face. Thomas had found them a small fishing raft and they’d settled in it to talk for hours into the night, eventually falling asleep there between the slatted benches. But even with the brittle wood digging into his back, Newt had never been more aware of how lucky he was. All of this, he’d almost missed. He would have died not knowing he had a sister, not knowing the way the touch of a lover could change your world. Newt thought back to his dive off the wall, his fight with the Flare, and thanked his lucky stars that he was alive.

For two weeks Newt’s life settled into a pattern. Get woken up in either some state of partial undress or fully clothed in whatever location he and Thomas had settled in that night (with huts still being built no one truly had assigned places yet so they didn’t think it really mattered - however lying atop the Berg to stargaze one night and passing out there might NOT have been the best idea, given their wake up), spend the days working hard to build a new life, in the evenings he and Sonya’s friends tried to get to know each other better, and after the fire he and Thomas would wander off somewhere new. Newt honestly thought it would continue on like that, until the night that Thomas realized he hadn’t eaten enough at dinner and wanted a late-night snack. 

They’d barely been sneaking about the kitchens for two full minutes before a light switched on and they were met with the sight of a disgruntled Frypan wielding a chopping knife. 

“No.” Frypan said, grip tightening on the knife. “Not happening.”

Newt was taken aback, because what the hell? He knew that Frypan was stressed out a bit and completely strict about who went inside his kitchen but coming at them with a knife was a bit much. Evidently Thomas agreed.

“Whoa, Fry, calm down I just wanted a snack,” Thomas began, slowly backing up until he was flush against Newts front. The feel of Thomas against him so tightly should not affect him like this given the situation they were in, but it really couldn’t be helped. They’ve been stuck teasing enough other with the hint of something more for what felt like ages. But there was always sand, everywhere. And Newt had yet to figure out what on earth they were going to do for something to… smooth the way, so to speak. But none of that should matter right now because Frypan was shaking his head, moving forward, and pointing at them with a _ knife _ .

“Yeah, it starts with a snack. And then a laugh. And then you’ll be kissin’ and then you’ll forget where you are and then you’ll do things that  will **not happen in this kitchen** . I got nothin’ against the two of you bein’ handsy but that klunk ain’t sanitary. This has got to stop. GALLY! Get your ass in here!” 

Newt felt heat rise to his face at the accusation and saw the back of Thomas's neck turn bright red as well. Neither of them had words. 

“Now, you want a snack? That’s fine. Nobody goes hungry in Frypan’s kitchen. You just sit down and eat while we wait for that slint head to get in here.”

Neither of them moved. 

“I said sit and eat!”

They sat and Thomas reached out for the first thing in front of him, a bowl of fruit left out to ripen. 

“Much better.”

Newt honestly couldn’t tell whether or not Frypan was being serious or fucking with them, but either way it was effective. Thomas munched on fruit, Newt didn’t take his eyes off of the knife, and Frypan just smiled, waiting on Gally. Once Gally did arrive, he took one look at the scene and hung his head in a dejected sigh. 

“Get these two shanks a cabin. Now.” Frypan said, now pointing the knife at Gally, who glared at Newt. 

“You couldn’t stay out of the kitchen for one more night? We were going to reveal everything tomorrow! Brenda will kill me if she misses it, so will Minho.”

Newt felt like this was supposed to be an explanation, but now things made even less sense. He thought that none of the cabins were even close to being completed?

“Don’t care, Gally. They came in my kitchen, that’s where I draw the line.”

“I was just hungry!” Thomas exclaimed, when Gally grabbed his arm and started dragging him out the door. Newt got up and made to follow but Frypan held him back. Newt’s gaze immediately went to the knife. 

“Calm down, shuck face, I ain’t gonna hurt you. Take this.” Frypan said as he shoved a very large, clear bottle into Newt’s hands. 

“And what the hell is this?” Newt asked. He held it up to take a closer looked and found that it smelled sweet, almost like vanilla but different. Frypan was starting to look uncomfortable. 

“Almond oil. Do not ask me what it is for, use your imagination, get the fuck out of my kitchen and never speak to me about this again.”

For the second time in thirty minutes Newt flushed crimson and he suddenly couldn’t get out that door fast enough. 

 

Their cabin was perfect. Apparently, it had been a secret project taken up by everyone once Newt and Thomas made it clear that they were finally together. They’d built it slightly away from camp, next to a hill, and far enough inland that they weren’t on sand but still had an amazing view of the beach. It had real floors, a door, and a window that had a little door of its own so that they could close it. The inside was big enough for the bed in the far corner, two chairs, a small table, a large chest to hold their things, room to walk around in and for growth. A wave of emotion crashed over Newt to see it. 

“I thought we were low on resources? This is… too much, Gally. Too much for us.” Thomas whispered, awe in his voice. But Gally smiled and shook his head. 

“Nah man, for you two? It’s honestly not enough.”

\--

Thomas glances over at Newt, a frown pulling at his brow even as his jaw clicks open to ask---you know, he’s not actually sure what he was going to ask.

“Yeah, I’m worried too,” Newt says without missing a beat, gaze narrowed as he watches the open, empty doorway of their home – their _home_   – where Gally has just disappeared. “I mean, Gally always had it in him but I just didn’t…”

“I’ve never seen Gally nice,” Thomas finally manages to say. He’s still staring at the doorway; the night sky and the ocean visible in the distance, beyond the banks of white sand. He and Gally have a tentative understanding that started weeks back, but this sincerity is…new. “I’m – I wasn’t sure he even had that setting. I mean it’s good, right? Don’t get me wrong. He’s much better without the whole…murder brows going on, but I did punch him in the face- “

“You remember he punched you first, right?”

Thomas barely hears Newt’s idle interjection, voice laced with humor.

“And I mean, all I had to do was breathe and it set him off so I’m just a bit – why – what did I, we, do to make him think that he, I don’t know, owed us anything? The whole…nice, helpful, only a pain in the ass during daylight hours thing is just a bit- “

Thomas nearly swallows his tongue when he feels Newt’s mouth close over the pulse in his neck.

_ Fuck _ \- yeah okay this is better than wondering how Gally no longer hates him.

His heartbeat spikes, blood rushing. Thomas can’t quite help the choked sound he makes, both as his lungs stop working and at the pulling, rasping sensation of the open-mouthed kiss being sucked into his skin. Fingers curl over his shoulder, pressing firmly into the sweep of his collarbone and Newt steps into him from behind.

It doesn’t last long enough.

Newt’s mouth softens, lightens, and there’s just the barest graze of his teeth over the abused skin before he rests his head on Thomas's shoulder. His arms slide around Thomas's waist, fingers playing across the fabric of his shirt, gentle and deliberate in turn.

Thomas lets his remaining breath out in a rush. It’s still something he’s becoming familiar with; being at once completely calm and content but also wound tight, yearning a wild note in his veins. He knows it works two ways, and that takes away all the doubts he might otherwise have had; he knows he can make atoms explode and electric surge under Newt’s skin with a touch, but that he can also steady and ground him as well.

“Are you done, love?” Newt asks him. His voice is touched with something like promise, even though he still sounds wildly amused.

Thomas huffs a laugh, happy in this in between state; nerves buzzing, acutely aware of everywhere Newt is pressed into him but also happy just to exist there. Something hopeful and glowing pulses in him every time he hears that soft endearment. It’s something Newt doesn’t say around anyone else; something that’s just his when he has to share ‘Tommy’ with the world. He likes that Newt often doesn’t appear to realize he says it, that this is just what they’ve become now.

“I just- “

Newt’s fingers press into his hip bones and Thomas shuts right up.

“I’m done,” he re-decides on.

“Good choice,” Newt says, chuckling faintly.

His hand reaches up, palm pressing with intent and Thomas stops even breathing until Newt’s fingers curl around the metal capsule of his necklace, tugging very gently just once. The sensation bolts straight through him and Thomas bites on his tongue to stop the noise that arcs in his throat. Even if the letter inside was written for a future that never came for them, somehow knowing it’s in there makes every touch to it heightened, inflaming. He’s acutely aware that Newt is still warm, alive and...his. 

And then he’s gone, moving away and letting the cool night air rush up Thomas's back where he had been tightly pressed. Thomas turns to watch him move back through the hut – their home, eventually that will sink in – and go to kick at the edge of the bed. It’s a sturdy looking palette with a mattress of some sort that’s been salvaged from somewhere and Thomas tilts his head in idle curiosity.

“You think it’s going to break?” Thomas asks him, confused even as his own question sends a bolt of white heat down his spine.

Newt looks up at him. “Bugs used to get into ground beds back in the Glade,” he says – and, yeah, that sounds reasonable – but then Newt smirks. “Although its stability is important, too.”

Thomas shakes his head, even as he feels the way the words coil in the pit of his stomach. Newt seems goes back to making sure there’s no snakes among the blankets – or, heck, anything deliberately left as a prank, because Thomas really isn’t sure about this sudden streak of sincerity from Gally.

He casts his eyes around the hut instead, and that’s when they land on a large glass bottle. It’s been set down on the table fashioned from metal off cuts and natural driftwood and the glass it’s almost entirely full of a viscous, smooth looking pale golden syrup. Thomas picks it up, turning it between his hands, watching the way moonlight from the small window catches it, slides along the glass barrel.

His innate curiosity wins out, and he pry’s the cork from the top. Immediately he’s inhaling a sweet, fragrant scent. It reminds him of being in the kitchen not too long ago and the way he’d been too wary of Frypan wielding a huge knife too really focus on actually eating much.

Shrugging to himself a little, he slips a finger into the neck of the bottle, tips and then sucks his finger into his mouth. He’s not sure what it is, but it tastes…good enough. It’s better than Vince’s attempt at bread making which had felt more like burned cardboard. It’s decent.

There’s a strangled, hoarse sound from behind him and Thomas spins, alarm zapping up through his nerves--- only to snuff out when he registers what he’s seeing.

Newt is staring at him, eyes dark and touched with something blazing and hot.

Thomas sets the bottle back down slowly, everything inside of him coiling steadily tighter, his skin prickling beneath the scratch of his clothes.

“Newt?” he asks, and he means it to sound cautious, but there’s a kindling of desperation heady in his own voice.

Newt swallows tightly. “Lock the door, Tommy.”

\--

Thomas had barely dropped the bar across before Newt was pushing him back against it, holding him there with a hand on his hip and the other pulling Thomas's face down to Newt’s to meet the onslaught of passion that came from Newt’s mouth on his.

Newt could taste the oil on Thomas's tongue and it made him groan at it’s sticky sweet texture, mixed with the heady taste that was  _ Thomas _ . This had been building between them both for so long, so damn long, that Newt was almost so overwhelmed that he didn’t know where to begin. Kissing Thomas was like standing in front of a wave and waiting for it to crash down around him - powerful, intoxicating, and world changing. It knocked the breath from Newt’s lungs and made it difficult for him to stand, knees shaking at the amount of emotion coursing through his veins like rivers. Finally, they came up for air, gasping, faces touching and breath mingling. 

Thomas's eyes were nearly black, and he looked like he’d just found the answers to life with the way he took in every detail of Newt’s face—the same way Newt was doing to him.

They didn’t speak, they didn’t need to, the silence spoke for them. The way they breathed, and touched, and smiled was their conversation. The way that Newt gently traced his fingers down Thomas's face, and Thomas's hands held Newt so softly between them said any and everything that could have been said.

When Newt leaned up to kiss Thomas again, it was calmer. It was the sky slowly transitioning from day to night, the moon rising to its zenith. Powerful, but natural, just the way the world turned. Newt didn’t know if he believed in fate but if it existed, if two souls could truly find each other and merge into one—Newt knew it must feel like this. 

He broke the kiss only so he could rid Thomas of his shirt and lightly toss it to the side, but then he was pushing Thomas against the door once more, needing to be in his space as much as could possibly be allowed. But slowly, so damn slowly, because there was no way he was rushing this. Newt had lived through every type of hell imaginable, he’d lived through certain death twice, and there was no way that he wouldn’t take his time enjoying his prize. If the man in front of him was what made everything worth it, and he was, then Newt would be damned if he didn’t savor every second of this. 

While Newt took his time thoroughly tracing the inside of Thomas's mouth, Thomas was working on divesting Newt of his shirt, which he allowed. The feel of Thomas's hands tracing his arms, his back, his neck, so featherlight was the best kind of tease. It hinted at the strength in those hands, held back only at Thomas's behest. They were the hands that brought down a City, and yet on Newt they were soft and kind. There was a power in that, a power that they gave each other. These two being capable of mass destruction, both the end and rebirth of a world, yet when applied to each other you’d never know. Not with soft gasps, gentle nips of teeth, and bewildered smiles.

Newt pulled back from his kiss and took Thomas's hands gently in his, and he couldn’t keep the grin from his face. Didn’t want to. He barely had the presence of mind to move the bottle of oil from the table to the floor near the bed, but it was done with a chuckle that so was quiet it was lost in the waves to all but Thomas.

His Tommy.

Newt brought Thomas's hands to his face and kissed each knuckle and then guided them both to their bed. It took no urging at all to lay Thomas down onto it, and where Thomas went so too did Newt follow. With Thomas on his back Newt rested above him, once again allowing himself to kiss those beautiful lips. The lips that had begged, and pleaded, for Newt not to leave this world and  _damn_   he’s so glad that he listened. 

The emotion, the joy at this meeting of bodies, was so overwhelming that Newt almost couldn’t contain it. He couldn’t kiss Thomas for too long without needing to pull back and stare at this beautiful creature that he couldn’t believe he got to call his own. That he would get to spend the rest of his very long life caring for, supporting, adoring. And it was then, staring into his eyes and heart stuttering in his chest, that Newt broke the silence.

“I love you, Tommy,” Newt whispered, tracing Thomas's cheekbone with his thumb—brushing away the tear that had fallen there a moment before. Newt wasn’t sure if it was his, or Thomas's, and it didn’t matter. Tears leaked from them both, just a few, as they smiled and laughed, and Thomas shook his head, brushing the tip of his nose against Newt’s.

“I’ll follow you anywhere, Newt,” Thomas replied. 

Newt’s heart soared, because of course he’d understood the letter. Understood what Newt was trying to say but had felt like those three little words didn’t convey enough of what he’d felt. And Newt just couldn’t hold himself back anymore.

Once again, he devoured Thomas's gasps for air, kissing him like the building of a storm. Newt mapped his freckles with his fingers—four on his left side, three on his right, and two in the center of his chest that Newt bent down to lick because they were  _ important_. Newt licked at his nipples, taking them between his teeth and enjoying the hiss that came from up above. The way Thomas's throat arched backwards and then Newt was back up and catching his pulse between his teeth, too. 

Newt licked and sucked bruises anywhere his mouth fell, spending a full minute on a spot beneath Thomas's left ear that made his lover shake beneath him and his gasp tremble into the night. All of this he did while untying the knot on Tommy’s trousers, though his fingers kept fumbling on the strings. The storm within them both was building, and Newt was almost afraid he would get lost in it and not be able to notice the way Thomas's stomach jerked in time with every nip of Newt’s teeth, or how his muscles clenched while Newt’s fingers grazed on top of them.

But with the knot undone, Newt took every pleasure of removing the trousers, the boxers, and having his Thomas laying naked and vulnerable before him. Displayed like a treasure that was Newt’s for the taking, and only Newt’s.

Thomas's erection leaned up against the trail of hair beneath his navel, swollen and leaking, and begging Newt to taste it. So he did. With all the practice he’d had over the last week or so he was able to take it down to the hilt without his throat protesting, swiping his tongue round in circles and causing Thomas to nearly jack-knife in surprise. 

But Newt knew his body by now and had held his hips in place, fingers squeezing so hard that Newt would be surprised and disappointed if there weren’t bruises there in the morning. Newt reached up with one hand and placed two of his fingers into Thomas's mouth, both to muffle the sounds pouring out of him and also because he wasn’t quite ready to break and grab for the oil just yet. 

God, the way his Tommy sucked on his fingers nearly ended the whole ordeal right then and there, but Newt was determined. Desperate. The storm raging would accept only one conclusion to the maelstrom that had been brewing since the day Thomas had come up in the box and turned Newt’s life upside down in the best of ways. 

Newt was wearing too many clothes for this.

Frustrated and irritated that clothes didn’t just magically melt off of his body when he wanted them to, Newt leapt off the bed to slide out of his trousers and to pour a small amount of oil onto his fingers. It smelled sweet, earthy, perfect.

In one fluid motion Newt climbed back on top of Thomas, leaned down, and kissed him as though the very air he breathed must first have been breathed by Thomas himself. Before too long, Newt broke the kiss, impatience and his desire to take his time warring under his skin and looked into big brown eyes clouded with lust.

“Do you trust me?” Newt asked, begged, pleaded.

“ _ Yes _ ,” Tommy breathed, gasped, praised.

Newt slid down Thomas's body to once again take his cock into his mouth. While he teased the head with a hard flick of his tongue, Newt’s oiled fingers reached under Thomas and began to circle his hole slowly, delicately, and enjoying the way Thomas's skin pebbled and muscles spasmed at the motion. 

He took his time taking Thomas apart slowly with his mouth and fingers, waiting for the tight ring of muscle to relax before sliding a finger in and feeling the tight, _ so fucking tight _ , heat that awaited him. Thomas cried out and grabbed Newt’s hair, the other grabbing the mattress, though his ass rocked back onto Newt’s finger as though he couldn’t help it.

Thomas was as desperate for this as he was.

Patience, they both needed patience.

In and out Newt worked, opening Thomas up for a second finger, and then a third. Removing all three and adding more oil—just to be sure—before inserting them again, harder. 

Thomas yelled and laughed his delight. Newt wanted to spend the rest of his life pulling that sound from him.

Thomas's cock had softened a bit at the intrusion but as Newt kept pumping his fingers, scissoring them open and then pumping them once more it grew again. It wasn’t long before both Newt and Thomas were shaking and it took a moment for Newt to hear through the ringing in his ears that Thomas was _begging_.

“Please, fuck, Newt, God, _ please _ , I need—I—I need—”

Newt removed his mouth with a slight _pop_   of sound, raising his head to fully appreciate the view in front of him. 

Thomas was flushed, panting, writhing on the bed, his hips rocking back in response to Newt’s fingers moving inside as though they couldn’t help it. Already his cock was leaking again, his mouth was open, and his eyes were shining. Newt was so hard that he hurt, but he needed to be sure. Had to know that Thomas was ready for this because it wouldn’t last long, he could tell, and he couldn’t mess this up.

“What is it you need, love,” Newt said lowly, voice hoarse and rasping, heart pounding out of his chest.

“ _More_. ”

It was like a coiled spring was released, how quickly Newt moved. 

“Move up, Tommy love, move up a bit,” Newt guided, getting Thomas up so he was resting more on the pillows. He removed his fingers and reached again for the sweet oil, but Thomas's hand stayed him.

“Let me,” Tommy rasped, placing the oil on his own fingers before taking Newt’s cock and wrapping his hand around it.

Newt couldn’t hold back his cry and had to use his arms to brace himself up on the bed at the movement, at the way Thomas slid up and down so perfectly, ringing the head a few times before chasing down the rest of the shaft. Newt was shaking with restraint when he leaned back again, when he and Thomas moved him into position.

Thomas pulled back his legs for easier access, and the sight of it, of Thomas holding himself open, of _ yielding _ to him, was too much. It was sensory overload and it took every ounce of self-control Newt possessed to line himself up against his pucker and slowly, agonizingly slow, push passed the ring of muscle, and join himself fully in mind, soul, and body with the love of his life.

They both cried out, both started to shake, but Newt held himself still inside that heat, not moving an inch as he felt Thomas's walls relax to allow him in. As carefully as he could, Newt leaned down to kiss whatever parts of Thomas he could reach, and took Thomas's softened cock in his hand again, working it slowly so that he was able to get past the feeling of intrusion and find the pleasure once more. It wasn’t long before Newt slid more inside and _ wailed _ at the friction, at the motion, and began to withdraw.

It was a give and take, it was coming home. It was life, it was death, it was love, and hate, it was everything and nothing all at once. It was cosmic and musical and powerful, and he was the moon, but Thomas was the _ sun _ and as their bodies moved together in their universe they lost track of time, of emotions, of their own names, of everything but skin and teeth and lips, and each other.

They were radiant, luminescent, every word to exist, but most importantly they were _ one _ .

When a snap of Newt’s hips found a spot that made Thomas scream into the night, he focused all of his efforts on finding it again, and again, and again, until Thomas was a begging, weeping, mess before him—but Newt was no better. They held each other close, gripped tight, whispering words of love, and life, and promise.

And when Newt could feel the storm building, coming to it's blinding burst of light and sound, he took Thomas's cock in hand and pumped in time with each snap of his hips. They were shaking, and crying, tethered to this earth only by the touch of each other.

“Newt—”

“Tommy—"

And the storm broke, shattering them into a millions pieces and forging them anew from the molten stars they’d come from. Newt swallowed Thomas's cry with a kiss, and they were taken by aftershocks and waves of a kind of joy they’d never known existed.

 

Hours later, entangled with each other and holding each other in their arms, Newt played with the necklace that even now Thomas still wore. It was symbol, he thought. Of a life that wasn’t, a reminder to be thankful for what they had, what they would receive. Of the gift of time that against all odds, the universe had sought to give them.

“Sleep, love,” Tommy whispered, and Newt could hear the grin in his voice at using Newt’s endearment. “I’ll still be here in the morning. We’ve got the rest of our lives.”

And so they did.

**Author's Note:**

> Just so you know, we spent the WHOLE DAMN TIME bitching about sand and how the boys would get their hands on some lube. Thanks to Frypan and Gally for getting rid of those problems. 
> 
> Rach, you're an amazing writer and I couldn't have done this without you. Thanks for teaming up with me :)


End file.
